It is time for Thoughtful Thursday and the bookish questions that pop up while I am reading. Please share your thoughts on the bookish question of the week. I am curious to hear what you have to say! There are no wrong answers. Questions about Thoughtful Thursday or future Thoughtful Thursday posts? Check out my Thoughtful Thursday section. Alright, on to the question!

Does anything besides the text (and price) draw you into a book? Some
books have covers that glow-in-the-dark. Some books have different
colored text to differentiate POV characters. Some books have drawings
intermixed with the text.

Maybe it is just me, but I have been noticing that books seem to be up-ping their game when it comes to enticing readers. Books like Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and The Creature Department both had glow-in-the-dark covers. Books like The Neverending Story and Legend have different colored fonts to differentiate between characters. Other books like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Amy and Roger's Epic Detour have pictures, fun drawings, and/or playlists littered throughout the text.Some things like the glow-in-the-dark covers amuse me and the colored text are very neat, but they alone do not entice me to buy a book. Okay, I will admit that I bought a hardback of The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (if you love the movie, you NEED to read the book, it is amazing!), because I wanted the colored text and the gorgeous drawings at the beginning of each chapter. What does entice me to buy a book are really clever things inside the book like the drawings, playlists, pictures, and other representations of things that are happening in the book. These items can give life to an already awesome book or "plus" a lukewarm book for me. I think it comes from loving books like The Jolly Postman as a kid. In this book, you opened letters that the postman was delivering to different fairy tale book and nursery rhyme characters. I loved that book so much! These items or pictures help immerse me in the book experience. Will I buy a book just for the non-text things in a fictional book? No, well most likely no, but it will definitely get me more interested in it. Case in point, Amy and Roger's Epic Detour didn't sound super exciting to me (I don't read a ton of contemporary novels); however, all of the pictures and playlists in the book intrigue me.I am pretty good about not buying books, because they are "collector's editions." This is mainly because I don't collect books right now. Unless I love a book, any physical books will eventually be given to a friend or donated to the library. I live in a small apartment and my husband and I are both early in our careers so we move a lot. In short, we can't collect a lot of extra books. I say extra, because I have a ton of craft books and my husband has a good number of role-playing game books. We all need to have our priorities. :)

Now it is your turn! Does anything besides the text (and price) draw you into a book? Some
books have covers that glow-in-the-dark. Some books have different
colored text to differentiate POV characters. Some books have drawings
intermixed with the text.

Important Commenting Information!!! (I will keep this info at the bottom of the next week's posts.)

I just switched my commenting system over to Disqus, because I recently realized that the Blogger commenting system doesn't automatically email people when I (or others) respond to their comments. Well, it can, but it doesn't work in a seamless way. So in a moment of spontaneity, I decided to put Disqus on my blog. It is a fairly popular commenting system, so hopefully this won't be too upsetting for anyone. I find it really easy to use as a commenter, so I thought folks would be okay with it.We will see how this goes. If you all hate it, we will try something new.If you can't see Disqus, I have found a couple of reasons why this may be happening! 1. Are you using Avast for antivirus protection on your browser? If so, click the Avast icon in your browser and allow "social networks allowed." If this doesn't work, try also allowing "web analytics allowed." You can just do this for my blog or just this one page on my blog. Avast can be very stringent, and it hides Disqus, Google+ commenting, and social media buttons on sites for me. I was so annoyed that I could never find a Twitter button to share things until I changed this setting in Avast. 2. Do you use other plugins or extensions? They might be causing the issue. I haven't noticed a problem with using plugins like ad-aware/ad-blocker. You may need to turn some of these off and refresh the page or restart the browser. 3. You may need to clear your brower's cache or cookies. On the other hand, you may need to enable cookies.

29
comments:

I just tweeted you about Disqus!! I looked up those books that have glow in the dark covers. I'll admit.. I am a sucker for art. I see a pretty cover and I am like...ooohhh pretty! I do like books outside of the normal with inserts. I am about to start reading S by JJ Abrams and can't wait to look at all the inserts and see what it's all about. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the 39 clues too!! Neat books that were different and each was written by a different author which also intrigued me.

I do think I fall for gimmicky/different things in books. I read Why We Broke Up because of the illustrations, for example. I'm also drawn to books with some sort of inherent structure. Like, with Thirteen Reasons Why the structure was knowing we'd be listening to the 13 cassette tapes. In The Hunger Games, the structure was the games themselves and watching the number of competitors dwindle. It's why I like books that take place over 24 hours, or one year, or a competition. It's also why I like cozy mysteries -- that each character will be interviews, considered, and then a murder will be revealed! I don't know why this appeals to me, and I just now realized this is a thing. Maybe I just really like structure and rules?

My husband and I have been discussing what bookstores might do to keep shoppers coming in, what extra bookish merchandise might be made available, and I hadn't thought about what might be offered in books themselves. I'm not *too* taken in by those kinds of things, but I did buy House of Leaves after flipping through it at a bookstore and wondering what it was all about. And there's an edition of The Neverending Story with different colored texts for different characters? *glances at her very used volume that was last returned -taped- back together* I will admit that I'm a sucker for an undersized volume, especially small hardbacks. They're just so...cute.

i loved Discus and used it on blogger, it really promotes conversation. I am a sucker for a good cover...it is the first thing that draws me to a book followed by the synopsis. For collector books..yes covers, images and binding all draw me in, and will make me buy a book just cause it looks so darn pretty!

This is why I can get into trouble on NetGalley! I see the pretty cover and then I click request. Five minutes later, I realize that the book is the 3rd in a trilogy. *sigh* I really wish there was a cancel request button.

I love my copy of The Neverending Story! The text for the real world is in one color and the text for Fantasia in another one. You need to get the hardback. I am glad to know someone else has read and loved this book too!

I love small hardbacks too! I want to just have a shelf of tiny books! :)

I learned that lesson early on the hard way both netgalley and publishers neglect to say oh this is book 3..or they say works as a standalone and then you look and no, no, no..So now I immediately check Goodreads/Amazon for the deets

Maybe I enjoy books mysteries because of the structure too! I never really thought about it. OMGoodness, this is really blowing my mind. I enjoy the Harry Potter books, and they are over the course of a school year. The Finishing School books are each over a semester (or so). Hmmm, maybe my favorite genre is "organized." Can we make that a thing?

Thanks for sharing this is a whole new way of thinking about what draws me to books! :)

You would think that would be important info for potential reviewers to have, so you that the right reviewers get the book. Oh well. I have become much more careful and selective. I try to only request books that I really need to read right now. If I am only interested by the book, I just wait for my library to get it.

Great post and points Pamela. I haven't even heard of some of these things you have mentioned but think it would be awesome and definitely a plus point. I do cover buys, if a cover is gorgeous - I have bought a book based purely on its cover!

I normally only buy e-books, so the extra stuff often wont' really be in my book anyway. I think one of the House of Night novellas had some drawings but since it was in the kindle edition, it was really hard to see them, and it frustrated me to no end.

It's great that you've switched to Disqus - this way I'll always now if there are more comments on your posts :)

The cover. Definitely the cover attracts me to a book. XD Sometimes the title too or the author. Other times it's the buzz it receives in the community. Is it bad that I barely look inside when shopping? :P

I will buy a book for the cover if i like it enough- I get disappointed that way sometimes, but other times it works great! A recent example is Vitro. I wanted to read it anyway based on the blurb, but the cover... had to have it. So yeah, cover design works on me. :)

I also like interior illos- I still remember a time travel book I read as a kid, they went through different time eras and each chapter had a picture pertaining to whatever era they were in. I like that kinda stuff even today.

I don't really buy books that often so it takes a lot to get me to that point. So I'll go with how I used to buy books when money wasn't a problem. I'll buy a really amazing edition of a book that I already own if it's pretty enough, like the Barnes & Noble leather editions. I have five of them and I want them all! I've also been known to pick up a book with illustrations if they are cool enough to pull me in, like City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers or Series of Unfortunate Events. Now I work on cover love most of the time, I rarely even check the summary...which gets me into the trouble sometimes.

To be honest, there are only four things that draw me to a book. The first one is the author. If I am familiar with the author and if I have enjoyed his/her work, it is more likely that I am going to pick up her book whether it has a good cover or not.

Second, the synopsis also plays a great role. I seldom place importance on the covers because I am a firm believer of the saying that "don't judge the book by its cover." Whenever I am considering to buy a certain book, I always read the synopsis first.

The third criteria is the genre. My top 1 favorite genre is fantasy. So whenever I am in a bookstore or just browsing online, my first picks would always be books that belong to the said genre.

And fourth, the hype sometimes attracts me. I don't know but I always like to satisfy my curiosity.

That is exactly why I switched to Disqus! I got emails when someone posted on my blog, so I just assumed that everyone got emails too. That is not the case! Okay, there is a way to send emails to people, but it is a bit more complicated.

I normally buy e-books too, so I miss out on some of the book gimmicks. Recently though I have been reading more physical books, and I have been surprised with how much the book world has changed!

Disqus works really well - but so far, I haven't installed it myself. I have the settings on my blog so that the e-mail notifications for comments will only be sent out if there is an answer directly to the commenter - it's no fun to receive 100s of e-mails because a post is very popular - even if it's fun to read the comments of other people.

I am a huuuuuge sucker for when there are little clever things in a book edition, or pictures or colours etc. I recently saw some great pictures of S. by Doug Dorst and I think I drooled a little, $40 at my local bookshop though :'( to the library...

You have such cool topics! For me, those little features - like a glow I the dark cover - seem really gimmicky and make me doubt the book a little. Why does it need a gimmick to sell? However, if I ALREADY read loved the book and could see some reason that made sense with the book, I'd probably buy it. I also recently read an eBook that had beautiful drawings in it. That made me decide that I wanted to own the entire series in paperback - so I could really SEE and admire the pictures.

I still buy physical copies of craft books, because I don't want to miss out on any of the pictures. I also have a physical copy of The Neverending Story, so I can gaze at all of the beautiful drawings.